Plan to sterilize the Bowery nearly complete: RIP Billy's tent

We wrote this back in May:

We can't help but be nervous when we see things like surveyors at work outside Billy's Antiques on Houston... What are they surveying? What godawful thing is coming/happening next to this region near the Bowery?

Now we know: After 25 years, the tent is coming down at Billy's Antiques to make way for a two-story brick building, The New York Times reported.

Proprietor Billy Leroy confirmed that his store will reopen in the new building. But, you know. Per the Times:

[W]ith the disappearance of the tent, Mr. Leroy and his employees said, another vestige of the neighborhood’s history will vanish. It is a prospect that some of them anticipate with gloom.

“It’ll be part of that final transition to a landscape of Pottery Barns and Starbucks,” said Jesse Sommer, a member of Mr. Leroy’s staff.

Should have known when the skull blew down in August.

[Photo circa 1991 by Clayton Patterson, courtesy of Billy Leroy]

What do you do if your Aston Martin Vantage Volanté breaks down on Houston and The Bowery?

Billy Leroy, the proprietor of Billy's Antiques, passes along this anecdote from last night ... at the crossroad of the world — Bowery and Houston.

So this fellow has a $100,000 Aston Martin DBS 1984 Aston Martin Vantage Volanté that breaks down. As Billy notes, instead of calling a tow truck, the man decides to have a buddy tow him with a few feet of twine ...

As you might expect, it snapped.

So Billy was nice enough to lend the man a chain from his tool room at Billy's Antiques.

Billy notes that the man was kind enough to return the chain.

And the Ghosts of the old Bowery strike again.

Happy Halloween from Billy's Antiques

Houston and the Bowery....

Billy's Antiques battens down the ... tent

And they removed the Billy's sign too at the only tent in Manhattan ...

A bad sign at Billy's Antiques?

Billy Leroy passes along word that a gust of wind during the weekend took down the skull above his sign on East Houston...

The ghosts from the Bowery? Or the beginning of the end here?

Photos by Tim Dark.

Giant white Timber Wolf spotted on Houston and the Bowery

Luckily, it seems as if Billy Leroy was able to tame the beast..

Another view from 1991

We've had a few items lately about 1991. (Such as this one.) Billy Leroy passed along the above photo from 1991 ... The future Billy's Antiques was called Manhattan Castle and Props .. as Billy noted in the photo, it was a time when cope were making frequent arrests in the middle of East Houston just west of the Bowery... and the MTA apparently didn't care if you sold MTA signs...

[Photo by Clayton Patterson, courtesy of Billy Leroy]

'No wonder the Bowery has become the flip-flop and Baby-stroller Mecca of the World'

From the EV Grieve inbox, a note from Billy Leroy at Billy's Antiques...

You know what pisses me off?

All these "neighborhood activist/artist types" who are mourning/protesting the demolishing of 35 Cooper Square, which is a horrible and sad event. But they also supported "The Festival of Bad Ideas," which was sponsored by Goldman Sachs.

No wonder the Bowery has become the flip-flop and Baby-stroller Mecca of the World.

It will be a joy when Billy's finally closes. I won't have to look at all these #$%@& Yuppies anymore.

The damned: 'Dirty Old Tonight' screens today at BAM

BAM is screening "Dirty Old Town" today at 4:30, 6:50 and 9:30. (Find more details here.) The no-budget fictional film finds Billy Leroy with 72 hours to save Billy's Antiques from becoming a Starbucks.

Today, the Voice called it a "Low-Budget Ode to No-Budget NY." And per W magazine, "the result is a vibrant, visceral portrait of the streets of New York at their most sublime."And from NYPress, "'Dirty Old Town' isn’t really about the fantastic cast of non-actors the producers have unearthed, but the bits of the city being willfully forgotten."

Watch the trailer here.

Billy Leroy interviews Judgment Day wackos messengers on the Bowery

Billy Leroy of Billy's Antiques sends this clip along...



It does provide a little clarity to what we can expect. And, with that line of questioning, Billy needs a slot on "60 Minutes."

When surveyors make us nervous

We can't help but be nervous when we see things like surveyors at work outside Billy's Antiques on Houston... What are they surveying? What godawful thing is coming/happening next to this region near the Bowery?

And why do we hear rumors about something Starbucksy coming to the vacant storefront behind Pulino's?

Subway stops at Billy's Antiques again

The subway sign saga at Billy's Antiques & Props on East Houston comes to an end today. Last March, the MTA busted Billy for allegedly selling stolen subway booty. Prosecutors eventually dropped the charges. But! The city never returned his prized props. (BoweryBoogie has a nice recap of all this here.)

However, Billy tells us that he's picking up his signs at the NYC Property Clerks office in Long Island City today at noon. "And then I'm bringing them to Billy's to splash them all over the sidewalk," he says.

[Photo via Curbed]

Village Sheeple

A new sign by Timothy Dark outside Billy's on East Houston...

Watch Billy Leroy throw someone into a coffin and nail it shut

Billy Leroy tells us about an independent film project that he's working on called "Don Peyote." Michael Canzoniero directs. While it started out as a small film, the production received funding... and it's turning into some much larger... it stars Dan Fogler and Anne Hathaway.

Anyway, here's a scene that features Billy (and the fellow in the German helmet is Clayton Patterson; the young woman is Billy's daughter Celina Leroy).

Here's the set-up for this scene shot outside Billy's Antiques on East Houston:

"We jump on Dan. I beat him up and throw him into a coffin and nail it shut... It's all part of a nightmare scene he has after ingesting hallucinogenic drugs. Wish I could do this to some of the yuppies that wander into Billy's."

The movie is still in production. Here's a snippet of it.

[Photos by Isak Tiner]

Billy's will always be Billy's

A note from Billy Leroy, proprietor of Billy'a Antiques...

"Billy's will NEVER be a sterile boring comforting shopping environment for cage-dwelling Sheepeople...you have Rag and Bonehead right across the street and after you paid $500 for a pair of working class styled jeans you can go to Poolino's and have a $20 slice of bad pizza."

[NY1 spot photo: Joe Holmes]

A few years ago, when no one gave a shit about the wall at Houston and the Bowery

Billy Leroy, proprietor of Billy's Antiques, sends along this photo from 2006... I sort of summarized his sentiment from the e-mail in the headline...

Today, of course, the wall here is the scene of ongoing drama.

Billy's Antiques not getting its confiscated subway signs back

Catching up on some news from yesterday afternoon.... Last March, police arrested Billy Leroy and charged him with a felony of possession of stolen property in connection with subway signs that were seized from Billy's Antiques on East Houston.

Yesterday, the Times reported:

A Manhattan judge this week ruled against an antiques dealer attempting to get back subway signs that the police seized from him last year in a criminal case that was eventually dismissed.

But the judge, Rita Mella of Criminal Court, did empathize with the dealer, William LeRoy, and urged the State Legislature to change the laws governing cases like Mr. LeRoy’s.

Because state law does not give criminal courts the right to return to defendants belongings seized from them under a search warrant, Mr. LeRoy may be forced to file a lawsuit to get them back, “a measure that places a substantial financial burden on that individual, and contravenes the due process rights the courts and Legislature have sought to protect,” Judge Mella wrote in a 15-page decision.

Ronald L. Kuby, one of Mr. LeRoy’s lawyers, said his client was still considering his next step. The cost of continuing the litigation would be greater than the value of the signs... Mr. Kuby said.

As Billy said in an e-mail to me, "Well, looks like I'm fucked."

Caught on tape: New installation for Houston and the Bowery

Back in December 2009, tape artist Sam Bassett put his signature touch above the Os Gêmeos mural at Houston and the Bowery. (You can see a photo of it here at AnimalNY ... Check out the video of it too.)



On Christmas night, Bassett installed another creation above Houston at the Bowery.... which goes west to near the location of Billy's Antiques...



I asked Bassett via e-mail about the creation, and whether there was a significance with this intersection....

"I placed it there because its a central point in Manhattan, the poles line up to form the triangle, because of Billy and Billy's, because of the painting wall there," said Bassett, who was arrested in November 2009 after attempting to tape up Sotheby’s.

He continued:

"The triangle points East which represents the direction the world rotates. When we meditate in silence we face East in honor of this fact. The triangle in the sky is meant to calm, protect and inspire. To do more with less. To translate the power of reinvention and stillness. To showcase the hidden space in between, when utilized, open great possibilities of life. This ribbon sculpture is my interpretation of a Tibetan Prayer Flag. For unity and wisdom"




Meanwhile, Bassett hopes to install another tape sculpture on the former Deitch Wall, where someone quickly removed his work back in 2009. "That tape sculpture was secured like Fort Knox with very thick appoxy so it was definitely removed on purpose. If you look up to that space you can still see the faint outline of the shape. I would like to replace that tape sculpture with a painting or another tape sculpture. Thought it brought lovely energy to the intersection."

Billy's survived the blizzard...

...but will it survive the Suburbanization of The Bowery?

A rather ominous message from Billy's Antiques ...

Meanwhile, American Gothic Billy's Style ... Spider and Sugar Bear...

[Photo by Billy Leroy]

A very Billy Christmas

Here's the photo that accompanied Billy Leroy's holiday e-mail this year... (sent to us by a friend)



The note reads:

Wishing you a Scary Mary Christmas
from all the folks at Billy's Antiques